I find myself being drawn into conversations more frequently with friends and associates about situations where they have provided a service for someone and experience not being paid and even criticized.

This is one of the hardest things I had to learn when I opened my doors for private practice. I was occasionally admonished for charging an equal energy exchange for something like the Life Activation. And at first, I was affected by people who did not want to pay the fee. I ultimately learned that this had to do with my own internal sense of self-worth. As I explored this, I puzzled over why the same person who did not resent paying for a massage, or acupuncture, or holistic medicine, or a tarot reading, would expect me to work for for free (or hardly nothing) because I was offering spiritual healing and empowerment!!

As I worked on myself and feeling good and firm about the prices I was charging, I learned two other very important things. The first from Kabbalah regarding what is true mercy and what is true justice, and the second from another practitioner who was a Kabbalah student of mine, Jordan Bain, about flow and self-care.

When I was in Boston teaching Kabbalah a few years ago, Jordan facilitated and took the programs. He had and has one of the most thriving and busiest healing practices in the western world doing Modern Mystery School work. I asked him what his secret was to this success. He shared simply that you cannot be in business doing healing work in the community unless you are receiving it from others – and that he received somewhere between 3 and 4 sessions a week on himself. Not only did that return the flow to the community but it also helped him to keep his own cup full and he did not get drained. So simple and yet so profound.

The other important thing that Kabbalah urges us to consider is what is true mercy and what is true justice.

We are all aware of justice gone awry – especially in view of the many difficult situations and decisions the very people who are here to protect us find themselves confronted with. It is at the forefront of our news recently and will always need to be monitored.

Perhaps not as easy to spot though, and something we are not as aware of is well-intentioned mercy gone awry and the prices we pay for that. When someone receives too much without an energy exchange they are robbed of the ability to build true empowerment and independence. As well, they will ultimately resent the hand(s) that helped them. I personally believe that this is why Jesus demonstrated the importance of teaching someone how to fish for themselves instead of fishing for them.

The 3,500 year-old lineage of King Salomon is about true empowerment. This lineage has always been about being an empowering partner on someone’s path to full health and wellness vs. being “the healer”. Ultimately, only each of us can heal ourselves – it may take a team, but that team has to be about mentoring the healing vs. being “the healer”. As well, this lineage stresses the importance that we each do our personal work in order to become fully empowered in our own lives. This will result in our ability to fulfill our life destiny. Part of fulfilling our destiny always includes service to others, and true service to others is about empowering and never about enabling. It is often not easy to see the difference, either for ourselves or where others are concerned. And know that the more personally empowered we each are, the healthier our communities and world will become.

In view of the immense losses in Texas, Florida, and the Caribbean, as well as what just happened this week in Las Vegas, I invite you to join me in sending healing prayers, love, and strength to everyone who has been affected. The injured, the deceased, families, friends, first responders and their families, the entire hospital staffs who have kept them up and running – the list goes on and on and on. As well to the deceased shooter and his family and friends. I’m not sure this is something that we will ever understand. The best thing to do is to find true forgiveness in our hearts.